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Biography[edit]

McIlvanney was born in the town of Kilmarnock, the youngest of four children of a former miner, and attended school at Kilmarnock Academy. He went on to study English at the University of Glasgow and graduated MA in 1960.[2] McIlvanney then worked as an English teacher until 1975, when he left the position of assistant headmaster to pursue his writing career.[2]

In addition to his writing, McIlvanney has pursued a number of other interests: he is known for his work as a writer and narrator of a number of films including the BBC Scotland football documentary Only a Game? in 1986.[4]

Writing[edit]

His first book, Remedy is None, was published in 1966[5] and won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 1967.[6]Docherty (1975), a moving portrait of a miner whose courage and endurance is tested during the depression, won the Whitbread Novel Award.[7]

The Big Man (1985), is the story of Dan Scoular, an unemployed man who turns to bare-knuckle fighting to make a living. Both novels feature typical McIlvanney characters - tough, often violent, men locked in a struggle with their own nature and background.[8] The novel was adapted into a film in 1990 by David Leland, starred Liam Neeson, and featured Billy Connolly.[9]

William McIlvanney is also an acclaimed poet, and is the author of The Longships in Harbour: Poems (1970) and Surviving the Shipwreck (1991), which also contains pieces of journalism, including an essay about T. S. Eliot.[12] McIlvanney wrote a screenplay based on his short story "Dreaming" (published in Walking Wounded in 1989) which was filmed by BBC Scotland in 1990 and won a BAFTA.[13]

Since April 2013, McIlvanney's writing is regularly published on his own website personaldispatches.com, which features personal, reflective and topical writing, as well as examples of his journalism.[14]